Take that Moana ~ Part I

Sitting at a family reunion in Colorado with my new husband in the middle of a whirlwind summer (unsure whether my groom would be at our wedding, travel, photo jobs), I had a choice to make. Rewind. After hearing about the elusive Melissa and Scott, I finally met them at a potluck in Hawaii (unrelated to reunion) and clicked. Conversation was easy and it seemed like we had been friends for much longer. Toward the end of the evening, Melissa said I should come out to stay on their boat in Tahiti during the summer. Excited somewhat not sober Christa gave a very enthusiastic, ‘that’d be awesome, I’ll take you up on it!’ Later on, sober Christa would think, ‘thanks for the invite, I’m 91% sure it won’t happen but 9% is hopeful.’

Back to the reunion. I’d been offhandedly e-mailing with Melissa to see if there were any dates that would work to visit them on their boat. 9% hopeful Christa was still wanting to make the trip happen. After breakfast, I pulled out my computer for a quick minute to find an email from Melissa with dates I could come. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUNK! COULD I SWING THIS? I’M DONE TALKING IN ALL CAPS, IT’S A BIT AGGRESSIVE. BUT I WAS THAT EXCITED!

Three weeks later, after all of the things magically aligned, I was headed to Tahiti. After landing at the airport, insert a few sketchy incidents later, I boarded a puddle jumper to a neighboring island. When I landed I took an educated (well let’s be honest, it was lucky) guess and hopped onto a truck which took me to what I assumed was the water taxi described in Melissa’s directions. Thankfully, I ended up exactly where I needed to be and Scott came zipping up in their Zodiac (Animal) to pick me up.

Instead of heading directly to their catamaran, Kaimana, Scott said we were headed to have pizza. Sure, let’s get pizza (said no one ever in the middle of the ocean because that’s a normal and easy thing to do). But, since Scott was in charge and knew the area infinitely better, we met with Melissa and Celine (friend and guest) and had pizza on a little island. The pizza and wine were glorious. 

Melissa and Scott had a prime mooring location. You know what else they had? Kittens. Two of them: Tiger-Parrot and Cali-Ravioli. Donning a sneaky grin, Melissa asked, ‘you want to meet the puppies?’ ‘Wait, you have puppies and kittens!?!?’ She replied by turning on the blue lights at the bottom of Kaimana and illuminating shark pup upon shark pup. Then she slips into the water. Despite everything telling me this is a bad idea. Seriously, everything–Jaws. Megladon, my Dad, Sharknado I, Sharknado II, my Dad again, Sharknado III (there are 6 but I haven’t seen them all…yet). Marine Biologist Christa is thinking, ‘well, the sharks aren’t displaying aggressive behavior…’ Melissa pops up and says, ‘you coming?’ Me, ‘yes, let me grab my camera.’ Wow, wow, wow!  

What happened next you ask? Did the trip involve uku, tuna, kites, meeting up with Reo Stevens, sharks looking for easy meals, lobsters, hanging out with Dusty Middleton, eels, and PetCo? Hold on to your hat and bate your breath until a few blogs from now for “Take that Moana: Part II.

Never count Funk out!

Dear Reader, that catchy closing line is under construction as no one would actually count a Funk out or it may endure the test of time, stay tuned, dun dun dun!

Melissa

Celine

Melissa

Melissa

Scott and Melissa

Melissa and Scott

Melissa

Celine